Eleven Days (18 page)

“The note ‘iss’ stands for insufficient sample size, ‘na’ signifies lack of activity, and ‘inc’ would stand for inconclusive results.”

She stopped, and took a long swig of Coke. “Okay, that’s how we tell whose blood is where. You don’t have to remember all that, just so you know how it’s done. The important stuff is that the blood that’s identified, or the nail scrapings from Peggy Keller and Phyllis Herkaman that were analyzed, have shown some results. The contents of the blender have shown results. Those contents were, by the way, confirmed as being Sirken’s testicles and his tongue.”

The room grimaced and groaned.

“There was no blood or other tissue from Francis McGuire found at the Herkaman residence.

“There were tissue samples taken from the fingernails of both Peggy Keller and Phyllis Herkaman. They sort of match, but weren’t sufficient for more positive results.
Sirken had no nails to speak of, he apparently chewed them or something. Also insufficient, but even less sufficient than the others. McGuire had no tissue to speak of on his remaining hand.

“Sirken, McGuire, and Herkaman had LSD in their blood.”

Art perked up.

“All four had blood alcohol contents varying from 0.198 milligram percent in McGuire to 0.03 in Herkaman. Stomach contents indicated that it was a red wine with McGuire and Sirken, probably the same with Herkaman. With Keller, it was schnapps, indicating that she possibly consumed her drinks elsewhere. Keller also had consumed a pizza within an hour of her death, while there were no indications of pizza in the other three. It is consistent with observed facts, as it was unlikely that Herkaman was given any wine during her ordeal.

“The red ligature materials were as nearly identical as they can be determined, given technological limits. McGuire’s hand was taken off by a heavy wedge, either an ax or a very large blade. The tissue was compressed, as was the bone. Heavy blow, only one. Some missing tissue on the exit side of the wound, as well as the nature of the wound itself, indicates that the wound was inflicted while the arm was resting on a surface, probably wooden. The hand was definitely severed after death.

“There was hair at the scene that was not that of any of the four victims. It was human, and we have classified it pretty well. Dark brown, reddish brown, gray, and blond.” She grimaced. “Obviously, either we have four perps, or it’s just an indication that there have been other people in the house. Not much there.

“Fingerprints of all four victims were matched to items at the Herkaman house. Those of Peggy Keller were also found among items removed from the McGuire farm. We have found a large number of prints in the Herkaman house, size indicating female origin, which we feel are
those of Rachel Larsen. We can’t tell because, to our knowledge, Rachel has never been fingerprinted, and we won’t get a match until we find her. There was also a large variety of partial prints, and some good ones, which are also not identifiable at this time.

“We also found some infant items of apparel in the Herkaman house, and a couple of Polaroid photos of an infant being held by Herkaman and Rachel Larsen. Examinations of both Herkaman and Keller indicated that Herkaman had had a child several years ago and that Keller had never had children.

“There’s one hell of a lot more, but those are the highlights.” She exhaled deeply, and was finished.

“Thanks, Hester,” said Lamar. “Now let’s hear from Judd about the fire.”

Judd was very brief. He had to be, because there wasn’t much to say.

“Well, it’s a definite arson. Accelerant, probably gasoline, was used throughout the house. Trailed from one room to another. Probably started just inside the side door, it looks like a soaked rag was thrown in. We might have an injury to the arsonist, because the gasoline vapors were permeating the entire house, and there was a minor explosion upon ignition. Just depends on how close he was, and whether or not he had the sense to take cover around the door frame. There was a lot of hot gas came out that door, in a hurry.” He looked at his notes.

“We’ve checked all the local medical facilities—nobody in with burns. If he was dumb enough to be curious, and stuck his head around the corner of the door, he’s probably bald now.

“No footprints linked to the perp, but there were a hell of a lot of firemen around out there. Found a two-gallon gas can inside the house, about where the kitchen used to be. There may be another one, but I haven’t been able to get to the basement yet. We aren’t gonna dust the can here, we’ll send it to the DCI lab and have them do it.”

He looked up, sort of shrugged, and sat down.

“Thanks, Judd,” said Lamar. “Any questions?”

Just about every hand in the room went up.

“Okay,” said Lamar, “let’s order some supper and eat here. You night guys might want to get some rest, but you can stay if you want to. Carl, Detective Saperstein wants to talk to you and Hal. Theo, Agent Gorse wants to talk with you. And the attorneys want to talk with all of us.

“We’re gonna have to get real organized, people.”

We all kicked in a couple of bucks and sent Eddie Heinz and Quint Shapley out for pizza. The “get organized” meeting would follow supper. In the meantime, we broke up into groups.

Art, Hal, and I went into the back office with Detective Bill Saperstein.

We three Iowa people were all about six to eight inches taller than Saperstein, who was about five five. As we shut the office door, he looked at us and asked what they fed us in Iowa.

We introduced ourselves to him, and he got the ball rolling right away.

“You gentlemen are in for a rough time.”

We agreed.

He lit a cigarette. I liked him more and more, as he was one of the few people left who seemed to smoke as much as I did.

“Your state attorney is right about the media. They’ll drive you nuts, because this is sensational stuff. Digging into a case like this, with a little luck, can make somebody’s
journalistic career. So they’re gonna pry and dig, and talk to all sorts of people. And they’re gonna piss you off.”

“Some do already,” said Hal.

Saperstein shook his head. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, baby.”

“Hey,” I said, “you don’t think that the job was done by Satanists?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s related, and strong in the motive, but I don’t like to label any case as ‘Satanic.’ They don’t come that way. There isn’t any real, true Satanic religion—not that’s established. They’re all involved in putting bunches of their wishes into a bucket with a bunch of the parts of Satanic belief that they happen to be fond of, and shaking the bucket. What comes out is tailored to the individual, or the small group. This is an unusual case. Like I told Hal on the way here, I was expecting to find that we had a ritual killing—or massacre, I guess would be more like it.”

“The dope surprised me, a little. I work dope in this county,” said Art.

“It’s possible that your perpetrator interrupted something. With the LSD, it would be a lot easier to surprise the victims.”

“What I want to know,” I said, “is what the hell happened to McGuire?”

“Beats me. You’ve gotta find his hand, or where it was chopped off.”

“We’ve tried.”

“I know. But that’s what I mean about good police work. You’ve gotta do your homework and handle the case like a routine murder.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said. “We don’t have routine murders—we have about one every three or four years.”

Saperstein laughed and shook his head. “Must be nice.”

“We like it,” said Art, “but it shorts us on practice.”

“Well,” said Saperstein, “from what Hal said, what I think you’ve got is this. Somebody knocked off a large part of a group. The group was composed of individuals with a common purpose. The motive for the killings is not known, but I think we can guess at revenge. If I’m wrong there, then there could be an inner-group motive, and you could call that political.

“So somebody wanted them dead. Either did it himself or got somebody else to do it for him. Whoever did it was psychotic, at least at the time of the murders. Whoever did it stayed in a psychotic state for a considerable length of time. That means that, unless you have a crazy running around that you all know is capable of it, and in a small area like this you would probably know him, there are two possibilities. One, the killer is an import from an area far enough away that you won’t know who it is, or, two, the killer was in an artificially induced state of psychosis. I think two is your case here.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said Art. “By artificial, you mean dope?”

“Possibly. But artificial can include extreme emotional stress, too. Maybe helped out by chemicals.

“Now,” continued Saperstein, “your perp is obviously acquainted with Satanism. Not necessarily involved in the practice, but he knows something about it. He may be using the Satanic-related things to cover his tracks, or he might be saying to the victims, ‘Look, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.’ ”

Not to try to claim credit for what Saperstein was saying, but it all sounded like the echoes of incomplete thoughts I’d been having all along. Better organized, more concise. But they had been there for a time. The “ring of truth” sometimes simply consists of stating the obvious in a new way.

“All of which,” said Saperstein ruefully, “leaves you where you were yesterday.”

“True enough,” said Hal.

“But,” said Saperstein, “somebody knows. That’s your key. And if this Rachel is still around, she is the one who’ll open it up for you.”

“If we ever find her.”

“Oh, you’ll find her. Maybe five years from now, but you’ll find her.”

“I think,” said Art, “we’d better do better than five years.”

“And,” said the New York detective, “there’s at least one other who knows, too.”

“Right, the perpetrator.”

“You got it, Carl.”

“But why did he come back and burn the McGuire house?”

“Ah,” said Saperstein. “Good question. Cleansing ritual? Likely, but it may not be your killer at all.”

“No?”

“No, it could easily be another member of the cult, cleansing the place that’s been defiled by somebody else. You’ll probably have at least an attempt at the other place, too. You look into it long enough, and you get lucky, I’ll be willing to bet that most of the really dark ceremonies took place at McGuire’s.”

A ray of light.

“We have some names of some other members,” I said. “We’ll interview them shortly, probably starting tonight.”

Art looked at me sharply. “We do?”

“Yeah, I haven’t been able to get ahold of you and didn’t want to leave a note.”

“Does Theo know?”

“No.”

“Well, there’s hope yet.”

“Who’s Theo?” asked Saperstein.

“Our investigator.”

“What, you got a problem with him?”

“Oh, yeah, you could say that.”

“What is it? He talk too much?”

“Well,” I said, “that, too. He’s a little heavy-handed, and he’s not too swift.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I’m being charitable,” I said.

“How’d he get to be investigator?”

“Long story,” said Art. Not wanting to air our dirty laundry in front of a stranger.

“Think of him like inflation,” I said. “Just something you have to live with.”

“He the only one like that you got?” asked Saperstein.

“Yes.”

“It must be nice to work in a small department.”

We could hear a small commotion at the main entrance. The pizza was arriving.

We all trooped back to the kitchen, via the dispatch center.

“Who’s the little redhead?” asked Saperstein.

“Oh,” I said, “that’s Sally.”

“Hummmm …”

I grinned at him. “That’s just an impression. Actually, she’s very quiet and well behaved.”

“Yeah.”

“And she has a lot of big brothers.”

“No kidding? Large family?”

“No,” I said. “Large deputies.”

“Oh.”

During supper, Lamar told us that we were now organized into teams, with specific objectives. Art, Hal, and myself were assigned to the Satanic group, along with Ed Yarnell, who worked day shift. Theo, Hester, and Quint were assigned to work the general public, to gather information about associates and habits. I’d thought that had been done. Mike, Eddie, and Judd were assigned the arson, and the prevention task at Herkaman’s, just in case.

The homicides themselves were assigned to a composite team composed of Hal, Hester, Theo, Art, and me. With the emphasis on Hester and Theo. Ouch. All information
was to go through the county attorney or his assistant, and Lamar, of course.

In addition, Theo and Ed Yarnell were to cover the funeral of the victims, which was scheduled to take place tomorrow. They were told to take photographs of everybody they could get, both at the church and at the cemetery.

Each team would have a minimum of one member meet with Lamar and the county attorney every day, at 17:00, to report on their progress.

Lamar, who is about as nice a guy as you could find, was beginning to get a little pissed off. He wanted this case solved, and wanted it solved now. Getting it done before the media could screw it up was a pretty strong motive. So was the public feeling that the unknown killer could “strike again, anywhere, anytime,” or some such bullshit as that. The public was wrong, but like they say, it’s not the truth that’s important, it’s what’s perceived as the truth.

The meeting broke about 19:15, which gave me forty-five minutes to get home, shower and shave, and get my uniform on so that I could start my eight-hour shift at 20:00.

When I got home, Sue was a little angry. I’d neglected to leave her a note about the meeting. Consequently, supper had turned out to be a problem. She’d taken care of it by making a taco-type soup, so it was still warm when I got there. She’d eaten.

I grabbed a bowl and sat at the dining room table with her while I ate it. I apologized for not letting her know.

She’d had a bad day, with the administration at the school playing musical chairs with special programs, trying to shift assignments and responsibilities, and trying to tell some of their better teachers how to teach. She and two other teachers from her department had been meeting at school for most of the day.